Do dreams ever predict the future? I’m convinced sometimes, yes they do. We certainly make a mistake if we imagine every dream is a premonition. But sometimes they are, and that is really curious. How and why this happens on occasion is hard to understand. Perhaps the subconscious mind understands matters our waking consciousness does not perceive.

How to know when a dream is possibly predictive? There are clues. One clue is when we need to talk to people about a dream remembered that seems full of significance but is not clearly understood. These dreams are vividly recalled and have an impact. I have such a story.

About three years ago I was giving a lift to a friend, and she starting talking about a dream she had. In her dream she was driving down a road filled with potholes. Some were small, some were large and one was the size of a swimming pool, crater-sized. In her dream, as she drove down the road she had to swerve drastically to avoid the potholes. There was traffic coming down the other side of the road as well, and the opposing side had potholes as well. She had to swerve into this road and avoid the oncoming traffic. When she approached the crater-sized pothole she thought she was doomed, but was able to avoid it.

Telling me about this dream, I suggested the symbolism was obvious…the road of life, the journey ahead will be filled with “potholes”. Dangers lie ahead. What these dangers would be the dream didn’t offer. We talked about possibilities, but had not clue. Something was waiting beyond the typical trials of normal everyday life. I made a mental note of her dream.

Less then a month after our discussion, she discovered she had breast cancer. She was suddenly cast onto a journey she never expected. She took chemotherapy. She was weak and exhausted by the chemo. She still had to drag herself to work and earn a living. While her health insurance covered most of her medical bills, going to work most everyday was difficult. The chemo did not cure the cancer. Eventually she had to have a mastectomy. Her road was indeed filled with potholes, and surgery (and recovery from cancer) was likely the big crater in her road.

The good news is that with support from her family, she was able to endure this personal trial and is now cancer free. She avoided falling into potholes and craters by doing what she had to…swerving and coping.

This past week she has undergone reconstructive surgery for her breast and is doing fine.

Sometimes a dream may offer a glimpse of the future. This future may not be avoidable and thus we have to drive our car on the road of life with agility and caution. She did not dream she crashed into the potholes but avoided them. And so she did with her experience with cancer.

Do the dead visit us on our dreams? Dreams being dreams, can we really identify any dream as being a genuine “after death communication” (ADC)? It would appear the last thing anyone would take seriously would be a dream.

However, I’d suggest the dead, on occasion, actually visit us in our dreams. I’ve heard enough first hand accounts about this phenomenon to take it seriously. If we accept this premise as even a remote possibility, how to distinguish between a typical nightly dream from a true after death communication? Here is an account that offers some clues.

Sally’s sister died of cancer over six months ago. Sally’s sister’s last days were pretty grim. Dying of cancer is a horrible way to go. Afterwards Sally never had any dreams of her sister. Then one night Sally finally had her dream. In Sally’s dream her sister looked wonderful without any sign of malady or distress.

Sally didn’t recall the location of the dream, just that she was talking with her sister. Her sister was happy. Sally asked her sister, “Are you in pain? Do you feel ok?” In her dream, Sally was aware her sister was dead. And her sister was also aware she was dead. Both understood what had occurred in life. This self-awareness is not typical in ordinary dreams. Her sister told Sally, “I’m was fine; I have no pain. And please don’t worry about me; live your life; I’m OK.”

I asked Sally if she asked other questions. Sally said she awoke at that moment startled. I said I wished she could have asked other question. What is existence like on the other side? What is the purpose of life? But no, it seems the purpose of these communications is to bring us comfort, and other communication really does not extend far beyond that.

How to discern a possible true after-death communication from a typical dream? Dreams are wild flights of fancy. Even the most realistic dreams are recognized as dreams once we awaken. However, dreams involving ADC seem to share unique properties.

1. The dead appear healthy.
In encounters with the deceased they appear their best. They don’t appear as they did when they died, sick or infirm, but as if they had resurrected, idealized bodies.

2. The dead act as they did in life.
Dreams are usually crazy “roller coaster rides”. But with ADC dreams, the deceased appear real and their behavior is consistent with how they behaved in life. It seems as if we are having an actual conversation with the person we knew.

3. The dead act with self-awareness.
With an ADC dream we are interacting with an independent, self-aware intelligence. It feels as if someone outside our mind’s imagination is actually communicating with us. It is hard to exactly explain this, but we know it when it happens.

4. The dead leave a message.
It seems the purpose of the after-death communities is to comfort us, and to let us know they still exist and are free of any suffering. Sometimes an additional message may be given, but essentially the dead speak to let us know they are ok.

5. We remember the dream clearly.
The ADC dream will be unusually vivid and memorable. So memorable that people will clearly recall the dream long afterwards. Most dreams fade away even if they are remembered at all. But the ADC dream experience sticks in our memory. It seems as if communication with the dead creates a different type of dreaming experience.

Another story. A year ago a lady died in her bed on Saint Patrick’s Day, and she was only in her early forties. To die that young seems so unfair. The funeral was really very sad and tragic. Her cousin, a young lady in her early twenties, told me she had a dream of her long afterwards, her only dream with her. In the dream the deceased looked wonderful. She asked the deceased if she was in heaven. And the deceased said yes, and that she was happy. The young said she could remember this dream as if she had just dreamt it. Listening to her story I thought how similar it sounded to Sally’s story. The five “rules” applied to both.

There are beliefs that no one truly dies until all living memory of the deceased vanishes from the earth. So long as a single person…a spouse, sibling, child or friend remembers someone they knew in life, the deceased are not truly dead. Final death occurs only when all living memory of a person is gone; when the last person who personally remembers the deceased has also passed away. Then an individual passes into history and is nevermore.

There is some truth with this idea. The dead really do continue to exist in our memories. And the memory can seem so real it appears as if they are still alive, mostly in our dreams. In our dreams we have far more vivid memories then possible when awake. The dreams can become so clear, we may question if it was only a dream, or if the dead actually visited us while we dreamed.

My mom died two years ago of cancer. It was a horrible experience, and I blogged about it back then. It was hard for my dad, but he is ok now. He is a tough guy. He was born in Lithuania and experienced WWII as a child in Eastern Europe. After the war his family immigrated to America, and I am his son. So he is a tough guy, having faced horrible events as a child. He was in Nazi Germany during WWII while the Allies were bombing German cities. He recalls seeing a woman fleeing a flaming building covered with fire as she clasping her child to her breast trying to escape. Horrible, terrible stuff. Those experiences formed my dad’s view of life.

The point is my father is not a sentimental guy given to emotional flights of fancy. Yet sometimes he dreams of his wife, my mom. Last week I asked him if he still thinks of mom. He said he had a very vivid dream of her.

He dreamt he was in the first apartment he and mom lived in. It was in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago long ago. He is now 79 years old. Mom was in the doorway of a hallway, standing there just looking at him. She did not say a word, just made eye contact. And she was happy, with a compassionate gaze. She was not the age when they lived in the apartment when they first married, but at her prime.

However, she wore the robe she had when she was sick, when she died of cancer. Dad mentioned that…she was wearing her last robe. The robe she had at the hospital.

He said in his dream, it was so clear, that he felt she was right there before him. Even after he awoke it was clear in his mind. When I chatted with him later, he said he could visualize the dream.

I asked him if he thought mom actually visited him in his dream? Just to say hi? I’m still here, and I am watching over you and I love you? Or was it just a dream. He didn’t know.

Merely a dream or more, the dead are not dead until the last person who remembers them no longer exists.